9 ms·

"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally use

"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack

icebraining 14y ago
His /. comment on the issue is good too: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151312&cid=12701745 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151312&cid=12701745
- gruseom 14y ago
  Yes. This part is worth repeating even though it says the same thing as the GP (I cleaned it up slightly): "Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah. But in the majority of cases in software, patents affect independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement. Why should society reward that?" Carmack put his finger on precisely what bothers me as a programmer about software patents.
  - krickle 14y ago
    This is a very good explaination of why it is wrong. It all boils down to the fact that patent examiners apparently cannot be well-versed in every possible domain and therefore don't realize what is trivial or not. They give patents to each of the ten guys, when a patent should only be issued after ten guys' research of many months (if at all).
    - gruseom 14y ago
      It's not just about what's trivial, though many patents are. It's that you can work hard to solve a problem independently and then legally be attacked for infringing some claim you knew nothing about. One thing puzzles me. The social utility of patents is supposed to be that they spread knowledge, because otherwise people would keep their discoveries secret. Well, how many people make use of the "knowledge" in software patents to further their work? When was the last time any of us said, "Gee, this is hard, I'll do a patent search to see if anyone has solved it"? The very question sounds like a joke. In other words, regardless of what one thinks about software patents in theory, in practice their positive uses are negligible compared to their negative ones.
      - SimonPStevens 14y ago
        That's not the sole utility of patents. While it is part of the agreed exchange (temporary monopoly in exchange for publication), patents are also intended to encourage research and innovation. Who would bother spending time and money on research if the outcome was easily copied by competitors before you could recover your costs. (admittedly, this doesn't quite work out that way with many software patents). The publication of the patent itself is more of a side effect of the desired outcome. Also, just because you don't read patents doesn't mean nobody does. I would guess it's more of a trickle down effect. University professors and researchers read patents and use it to expand and continue research and gradually for the good patents by the time the patent has expired the knowledge it imparted has diffused into the working participants in the field.
        Schwolop 14y ago
        Bollocks. No university professor or researcher I know reads patents - we read journal papers and conference proceedings that describe the work in our language. Patents are written in legal language such that I can't even decipher patents written about my own work.
        gbhn 14y ago
tomjen3 14y ago
It would not be a problem if lawyers wouldn't take the case. So the question is, how do we make sure lawyers don't want to? (without going to jail).
- wmil 14y ago
  I think the big problem is juries. A group of random individuals isn't going to wade through the technical details well. However there's a right to a jury trial. So I propose the following. Juries for patent trials should be paid dramatically more (in the neighbourhood of what lawyers get) and selected from a list of volunteers according to criteria that the two sides argue over. The idea being that we want competent people to fight to get on juries rather than come up with an excuse not too.
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    Unfortunately, the flies in the face of the principles of trial law. The goal,in a trial, is that the jury is a blank slate, which exists only to judge what the counsels say. The only facts they can consider are those they hear in the trial from witnesses, and exhibits introduced. To have a jury of experts completely defeats this point; a lot of people argue the recent Apple v. Samsung ruling was invalid precisely because the foreman was an 'expert'. There is already legislation coming into effect in the US which will give parties 9 months to contest any patent, through the patent office. This should help solve the problem of lay juries deciding the validity of recent patents. http://ipspotlight.com/2011/09/19/changes-to-u-s-patent-law-what-happens-next/ http://ipspotlight.com/2011/09/19/changes-to-u-s-patent-law-...
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      >a lot of people argue the recent Apple v. Samsung ruling was invalid precisely because the foreman was an 'expert'. Not so much that he was an expert, but he thought he had relevant expertise, made a false presumption about the nature of the law based on that misunderstanding (namely, that because object files would not run without recompilation between the iPhone and instances of prior art produced by Samsung, it didn't count as "real" prior art), and convinced the rest of the jury to deliver a guilty verdict based on whether the processor could execute the same object code or not, not whether the presented evidence actually was sufficient "prior art", meaning a demonstration that the invention was not unique enough at the time to warrant protection, to invalidate Apple's patent. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828225612963 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828225612963

icebraining 14y ago

His /. comment on the issue is good too: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151312&cid=12701745 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151312&cid=12701745

gruseom 14y ago
Yes. This part is worth repeating even though it says the same thing as the GP (I cleaned it up slightly): "Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah. But in the majority of cases in software, patents affect independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement. Why should society reward that?" Carmack put his finger on precisely what bothers me as a programmer about software patents.
- krickle 14y ago
  This is a very good explaination of why it is wrong. It all boils down to the fact that patent examiners apparently cannot be well-versed in every possible domain and therefore don't realize what is trivial or not. They give patents to each of the ten guys, when a patent should only be issued after ten guys' research of many months (if at all).
  - gruseom 14y ago
    It's not just about what's trivial, though many patents are. It's that you can work hard to solve a problem independently and then legally be attacked for infringing some claim you knew nothing about. One thing puzzles me. The social utility of patents is supposed to be that they spread knowledge, because otherwise people would keep their discoveries secret. Well, how many people make use of the "knowledge" in software patents to further their work? When was the last time any of us said, "Gee, this is hard, I'll do a patent search to see if anyone has solved it"? The very question sounds like a joke. In other words, regardless of what one thinks about software patents in theory, in practice their positive uses are negligible compared to their negative ones.
    - SimonPStevens 14y ago
      That's not the sole utility of patents. While it is part of the agreed exchange (temporary monopoly in exchange for publication), patents are also intended to encourage research and innovation. Who would bother spending time and money on research if the outcome was easily copied by competitors before you could recover your costs. (admittedly, this doesn't quite work out that way with many software patents). The publication of the patent itself is more of a side effect of the desired outcome. Also, just because you don't read patents doesn't mean nobody does. I would guess it's more of a trickle down effect. University professors and researchers read patents and use it to expand and continue research and gradually for the good patents by the time the patent has expired the knowledge it imparted has diffused into the working participants in the field.
      - Schwolop 14y ago
        Bollocks. No university professor or researcher I know reads patents - we read journal papers and conference proceedings that describe the work in our language. Patents are written in legal language such that I can't even decipher patents written about my own work.
        gbhn 14y ago

tomjen3 14y ago

It would not be a problem if lawyers wouldn't take the case. So the question is, how do we make sure lawyers don't want to? (without going to jail).

wmil 14y ago
I think the big problem is juries. A group of random individuals isn't going to wade through the technical details well. However there's a right to a jury trial. So I propose the following. Juries for patent trials should be paid dramatically more (in the neighbourhood of what lawyers get) and selected from a list of volunteers according to criteria that the two sides argue over. The idea being that we want competent people to fight to get on juries rather than come up with an excuse not too.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  Unfortunately, the flies in the face of the principles of trial law. The goal,in a trial, is that the jury is a blank slate, which exists only to judge what the counsels say. The only facts they can consider are those they hear in the trial from witnesses, and exhibits introduced. To have a jury of experts completely defeats this point; a lot of people argue the recent Apple v. Samsung ruling was invalid precisely because the foreman was an 'expert'. There is already legislation coming into effect in the US which will give parties 9 months to contest any patent, through the patent office. This should help solve the problem of lay juries deciding the validity of recent patents. http://ipspotlight.com/2011/09/19/changes-to-u-s-patent-law-what-happens-next/ http://ipspotlight.com/2011/09/19/changes-to-u-s-patent-law-...
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    >a lot of people argue the recent Apple v. Samsung ruling was invalid precisely because the foreman was an 'expert'. Not so much that he was an expert, but he thought he had relevant expertise, made a false presumption about the nature of the law based on that misunderstanding (namely, that because object files would not run without recompilation between the iPhone and instances of prior art produced by Samsung, it didn't count as "real" prior art), and convinced the rest of the jury to deliver a guilty verdict based on whether the processor could execute the same object code or not, not whether the presented evidence actually was sufficient "prior art", meaning a demonstration that the invention was not unique enough at the time to warrant protection, to invalidate Apple's patent. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828225612963 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828225612963